One moment he was fine, the next there was a gash. A bright red gash on the outer edge of his right eyebrow. While it didn’t bleed much the screams poured profusely, filling our small home with the innocent sound of pain that comes from a child who didn’t see it coming.

I had no idea it was coming, he had no idea it was coming — and yet, when child met fireplace, fireplace won.

It’s been four years since the May Day eyebrow splitting shook my abilities as a mother. The screaming, crying, slobbering child was then nearly 2-years-old and had, until that moment, survived life outside the womb unscathed. His brother, older by an additional 20 months, too remained unscarred by rocks, playground heights, tricycles, electrical outlets and the like.

I guess I thought we were good. Over three years of stay-at-home motherhood under my belt with no 911 calls or blarring ambulances. I thought we were safe, solid…that it wouldn’t happen here.

And then, on that warm spring day with the windows open and brothers playing in the living room while I set about dinner, the screams began.

I recall rounding the corner, for a moment unable to distinguish which of my boys had shrieked, and as I turned to look it got worse for that instant any parent knows — the one where they’re crying so hard that they’ve gone silent — and I saw my baby smeared with blood and tears. So fast, so.damn.fast.it happens.

I grabbed a towel and scooped him up, held the shuddering boy close to my chest and made the sort of shushing noises that come on instinct. My soothing facade on the outside warred with the panic on the inside, because truth be told, I had NO idea what to do. My previous years of uneventful baby raising and confidence instantly vanished and there I sat, just a young person myself, suddenly failing at caring for the two lives I was entrusted with, afraid to stop shushing and actually look at the damage done.

My hand twitched first to reach for the phone and call an ambulance, then cowered back, for fear of overreacting. We sat there, locked in a wet embrace for many minutes, neither of us willing to make a move in any direction. As the sobs simmered down from pain and panic to upset, I hatched a plan — admittedly, perhaps, not a good one — to take a picture and ask friends what to do.

Turning to the Internet at large for medical advice? Not so highly recommended. Nonetheless, there was no gushing of blood and so I reasoned a few moments to seek advice the way we modern moms are able to wasn’t the worst idea. Sharing of the photos seems silly and trivial in hindsight, and yet that alone is what helped me get my sh*t together, make a game plan and deal with the crisis at hand.

We called the doctor, got an emergency visit arranged, cleaned the wound and put that super glue/liquid stitches stuff on it. Even one week later the child had forgotten his injury, and if asked where his “owie” was would have pointed to a scratch on his knee rather than his eyebrow.

My boy has been looking like a “tough guy” since the age of (almost) 2, and I don’t doubt that someday sooner rather than later a girl will find his faint eyebrow scar rather endearing. Perhaps, through the power of blogging, she’ll read about the moment his mom lost her sh*t as he cried and we’ll both look at him. She’ll see the guy and try to imagine the toddler, and I will undoubtedly see them both simultaneously, very much one in the same.

I can’t look at the injury photos and not feel emotions surging, and yet, I am able to look at that sweet face today without feeling guilt.

Yesterday evening, while writing this post, I asked the boy, now 5-years-old, if he knew how he got that mark on his eyebrow. He then scrunched up his face and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling in an attempt to look at his own eyebrow. “How should I know?” he replied. “I can’t even see that.”

And thus, it simply just is.

Commiserate with me? What is the worst your child has been hurt while under your watch — and how do you feel about it now?

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18 Responses to Scarred under my watch: How he looks 4 years later

Mandysays:

May 1, 2012 at 7:39 am

It was my daughter’s first birthday, which was on Friday the 13th, and we were at the grocery store. I was carrying my daughter when I slipped on some oil that had spilled on the floor. My daughter went flying. I dove after her. It looked like she had hit her head on the ground, but I wasn’t sure. We rushed her to the Children’s Hospital. They examined her and said she was completely fine and that I probably caught her just as she hit the ground because she didn’t even have a bruise or anything. It was honestly the worst moment of my life! I felt so horrible. I still do. But she is fine. She will be 3 in August.
My older daughter ran into the corner of a dresser when she was 2 and a half and has a little scar right where your son’s is.

Josays:

May 1, 2012 at 8:00 am

When my oldest, and only boy, was around 18 months he was in that unsteady walking but not quite running phase. we went outside to go for a walk one day and he pulled his hand out of mine and tried to run. To this day I regret not grabbing his hand again right away, he got 3 steps away from me, tripped over an uneven spot in the sidewalk and landed face-first splitting his chin. DH had to hold him down while they placed 4 stitches, which was almost more traumatic than the fall itself! He is 11 now, the scar is barely visible and he has no memory of any of it.

Beksays:

May 1, 2012 at 8:19 am

My son had stitches on his eyebrow before he turned 2 (hit a knob on my daughter’s trundle bed with all of us in the room) – it goes vertically through his eyebrow, and got the liquid stitches/glue just a few months ago. Honestly, I can’t even remember how that one happened. One day he’ll be so proud of those scars, I’m sure. Showing them off to all his friends. (insert shaking head, slight roll of the eyes)

People say, “Oh, that’s just him being a boy”, but I was the same way – I was in and out and of the ER so many times, they knew me. My poor mom, when I think of what I put her through. I had more stitches and broken bones than all three of my brothers combined! haha. Just a rough and tumble girl who had the unfortunate propensity to be clumsy as well.

Catrinasays:

May 1, 2012 at 8:21 am

Look at those eyes! I love the color, good luck trying to keep the girls off him!

momoftwosays:

May 1, 2012 at 8:23 am

At 18 months, I closed the bathroom door on my first child’s finger. Emergency room, sent us home (since she had just eaten) and operated on her at midnight. Her finger still looks a little funny – she’s almost 6. At 2.5 years, my second child was riding his truck thing down the stairs that lead up to our house, pitched forward and cracked his forehead open in a slit that looks like your child’s but above the eyebrow. His scar is still there today, now he’s four. I feel guilty, but at the same time, kids do these things. I feel more guilty about the finger since I actually closed the door. I try not to take it personally, though nothing of this sort has happened under my husband’s watch. I was a mess as a child, always getting myself in trouble, breaking my ankle, opening the medicine cabinet and pouring out the candy-looking Contact medicine and eating it only to later find myself having my stomach pumped at the hospital, slitting my chin open for some nice stitches (twice), 18 stitches in my butt for a really stupid accident, stuff like that. So, I believe they just inherited my tendency to have accidents and I just have to make sure I get them to a hospital quickly. I’m pretty calm in these situations, my husband runs around like a chicken with his head cut off. He’s never broken a bone or gotten a stitch in his life. I guess the way you handle it may have to do with what your personal experience has been.

Kellysays:

May 1, 2012 at 8:50 am

I have a scar on my eyebrow from running into a metal chair when I was a kid. I think my mom still feels guilty sometimes since she mentions it but it’s really not a big deal. I wouldn’t worry about it.

Ginasays:

May 1, 2012 at 8:59 am

Connor was just a little over a month old. I had asked my husband to stay home that day, just in case because I wasn’t feeling so hot. Actually, I was. I was feeling very hot. I had a fever of 103.2, but unaware of how high it was, I wasn’t going to let it stop me from performing my motherly duties. I felt like I had a fever, so I put on a surgical mask and scooped my little peanut out of his bassinet when I heard his first cries of the normal morning hours. And that’s all I remember.

When I came to, I was on the couch. My husband was standing over me in his towel, asking me if I was okay, stroking my hair. I could hear our little baby crying in the background. I sat up straight, scrambling to find out where the cries were coming from. Suddenly, a heavy wave of many ineffable feelings came over me. I can only describe myself as feeling “weighed down,” and, “out of it.” I knew I had had a seizure. Having had Epilepsy for 13 years, it was bound to happen while my child was young. By why this young?

“He’s okay,” my husband reassured me. “He’s just hungry.”

“What happened?” I demanded.

My husband pursed his lips and hesitated before saying, “You had a seizure while I was in the shower. When I walked into the bedroom, both of you were lying on the floor, you on one side, Connor on the other… I think you dropped him as you went down.” The last sentence was said as though he had rehearsed his lines. He knew what the news would do to me. I broke down in his arms.

“I’m a bad mother!” I wailed.

“No, you’re not, Gina. You’re sick. Look, he’s fine, he’s just hungry. We’ll get him a bottle, but afterwards, I want to take your temperature. Something’s wrong with you.”

After finding out that I had a fever of 103.2 degrees, my husband loaded myself and our newborn into the car and rushed me to the hospital to find out that I had a kidney infection. I was put on antibiotics and allowed to go home that night. But the worst wasn’t over.

The next day, Connor was vomiting and acting lethargic. I began to worry even more than a mother usually does about her children. I called the pediatrician and was given clearance for an ER visit. Suddenly, I got that feeling in my gut that a mother gets when she realizes that her relentless worrying is not without reason.

I took him to the ER and my husband met me there. While he was getting scanned, the radiologist, as she was looking over the images of his brain, said out loud as if thinking to herself, “Wow, what happened here?” (Hi, yeah… I’m right next to you!) I think the whole city of Fort Wayne heard me scream that day when the doctor came and told us that our son had bleeding in his brain. After hearing that, I lost it and the doctor had to give instructions to my husband as I lay lifelessly in his arms, sobbing.

Our son was transported via ambulance to another hospital in the area that specializes in Neurology and Neurosurgery. My son was given another CAT scan and after waiting for an entire hour, we spoke with the Neurosurgeon who told us that he had no bleeding in his brain, that what the ER physician saw was probably a shadow. However, our son was a little concussed and the doctor wanted to keep him overnight for observation. We spent the night with him and he came home with us the very next day. I schedulted a follow-up appointment with his pediatrician and had his CAT scans sent to Purdue University for a third opinion. They saw nothing.

Today, Connor is a bright, loud, obnoxious, sweet, little boy. I still feel guilty sometimes, but the experience has humbled me to take control of my Epilepsy instead of letting it control me.

Bethanysays:

May 1, 2012 at 9:07 am

Last Tuesday my partner accidently dropped our 10 month old daughter on the ground (while trying to get her into a hip hammock) and she landed head first. Huge knot on her forehead and road rash up the side of her face. We took her into the Doctor’s office and was assured that aside from a headache and some bumps and bruises she should be ok. The next day we notice she isn’t able to crawl so we took her back in again. This time they told us that she had probably pulled a muscle or was sore in her leg or shoulder. Ok, give it a few days to heal and call us if there isn’t any change. Things weren’t much better so we asked friends on the internet what we should do. I mean they had already told us that it was a sore muscle.

Yesterday we took her back in, she has figured out how to crawl but doesn’t put pressure on her right hand.The doctor didn’t think it was anything skeletal but conceeded and let us have an x-ray. Turns out she BROKE HER ARM. Yup. Almost a week ago. Something called a buckle fracture behind her wrist. She is now rocking a pretty purple cast from her finger tips to her shoulder.

Accidents happen. This is a lot harder on moms than kids in the long run.

Nickisays:

May 1, 2012 at 9:25 am

About 4 months ago, my daughter (then 4, just turned 5) fell off of the kitchen chair (the one she sits in every single day!) and busted her chin completely open on our tile floor. Before this happened, I also wondered….how do you know when your kid does or does not need to go to the ER? Well, that day I took one look at her and immediately knew she needed to go! She had to have 5 stitches and her entire chin was badly bruised and swollen for weeks. Having the stitches taken out the next week was almost as bad as having them put in! It has only been 4 months and the pediatrician told me the chin is a very slow healing area, but her scar is still pretty bad – a dark pink color. Hopefully it will fade with time. Luckily, it is on the under side of her chin, so you can’t really see it looking straight at her. And you know what?? She still doesn’t sit still in her chair, so it didn’t teach her much! I was happy she got to about 4.5 before her first ER trip. I thought that was pretty good!
My son is 22 months old and he has already had two black eyes and a few bad scrapes. But they all happened in that 12-18 month range when he waslearning to walk and then becoming more steady on his feet. God only knows what injuries he will acquire! He is kind of a wild man.

Lynnsays:

May 1, 2012 at 9:42 am

I have a scar over my eye just like that from putting a paper grcery bag (remember those?) over my head and spinning in circles and running into the TV unit. No stitches, no glue, just a bandaid and some ice cream.
DH has a scar also from sitting on a rail and falling off as a kid.
DS isn’t quite 2 yet, but in March he aquired his wn scar from tripping over his own foot and doing a header into the corner of a wall.
A friend and her boys were over last year and we left her YDS (2 at the time), my DS (1 at the time) and her husband in the living room while we were in the kitchen. Right in front of him, his own son stood on a plastic chair, it slipped, and he fell face first onto our floor that is wood on a concrete slab. Instantly a huge goose egg popped up. The dad completely missed what had happened right in front of him because the TV was on. The only person her LO wanted was my DH, who was the one person not trying to put ice on him or poke or prod him.
While she was on hold trying to reach the pedi’s office hotline (it was a Sunday), I got my otoscope, and used the light to check his eyes for dialation (I come from a family of doctors and other medical professionals). She made a comment that she still wanted to talk to the doctor and I said this wasn’t to decide whethr to cal the doctor or not, but whether to just skip to 911 or not. His eyes were doing as they should and sure enough, a few minutes later the doctor over the phone asked her to have someone get a flashlight and do exactly what I’d done already.
He ended up fine, but it took weeks for the knot to go away completely.

Jensays:

May 1, 2012 at 10:09 am

Last summer, July 17th, my DD was 7 years old and was jumping on the couch–something she knows not to do, but forgets on occassion. I was in the kitchen, throwing away leftovers from dinner and I heard her scream, so I ran in there and she was freaking out–her arm was clearly broken, it was in the shape of an “s”. I was so frantic that I rushed her to the emergency room in my nightgown and a pair of jeans, I forgot to even put shoes on her. They set the bone and put a splint on, and then a few days later they put a cast on. The bones still kept shifting, even after they set them again. She had surgery on August 26th and had a rod implanted and finally, mid-October, she was out of a cast. I’m so very paranoid now about the possibility of bones breaking, I think I was nearly as traumatized as she was.

Megsays:

May 1, 2012 at 10:33 am

Your little boy is so handsome! I agree with the other poster, you’re gonna be beating the girls off him with a stick ^.^

When my son was about 18 months, he climbed up on to his dad’s easy chair and started rocking on it from the top. We’ve told both our kids about a thousand times not to do that, yelling, giving time-outs, trying to explain what could happen. Well, one day, what COULD happen, DID. Tommy went flying off the top and landed on his right side, hard. At like 8:00 in the evening. 3 hours later at Rady Children’s Hospital (bless their wonderful, wonderful hearts) Tommy was x-rayed and diagnosed with a broken arm. Those were the longest 6 weeks in a cast I can remember.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, it happens. It totally happens, to all of us, and you know what? I still think we are all pretty damn good moms

Gracesays:

May 1, 2012 at 10:50 am

my son was 22 months and a bit of a nudist…we had to go out and he ran from me in some hope that he could avoid the clothes…he ran and his lip connected with a side table…it was pretty deep and if my sister hadn’t been there i think i would’ve died or something…there was a lot of blood and tears…and when he was 19 months he slipped on his towel after a bath and split his lip…i had to phone my mom to come over and help because all i could do was hold him…

Beccasays:

May 1, 2012 at 4:31 pm

Last summer, my newly turned two year old climbed up our very steep wooden deck stairs (we have a split level and the stairs go up a full story) to join me on the deck as I was cleaning the grill (he and his sister had been playing in the back yard below). I did my best not to panic, though it had been explained numerous times to both children that I didn’t want them on these stairs, and reached for his hand to help him up the last step and onto the deck. He, being 2 and fiercely independent, ducked his head and shook off my hand to avoid my help… and promptly fell the entire way down the stairs to the concrete slab below. I was about two steps behind him the whole way down with no way to catch him. When I got to him at the bottom, there was blood pouring from his mouth and the screams and tears were copious and heart breaking. After about 3 minutes of holding him, he’d calmed enough to let me look him over. He had no bumps on his head and didn’t complain when I pushed anywhere on his body, but the blood in his mouth came from knocking out a tooth… root and all. I called the peds office to see if we needed to bring him in but they told me they only thing they would do was what I had already done and tell me to watch him closely for the next 24 hours. He now, almost a year later, sports a very small raised ridge on his lower lip near the hole where his tooth was. My guess is he split his lip on the edge of the tooth as he was knocking it out.

Ashley Fsays:

May 2, 2012 at 2:57 pm

I consider myself a very lucky mom. My girls are 3 and 1.5. The only thing we’ve been to the hospital for was sickness (once for each child) and the worst we’ve ever had to deal with are minor abrasions and bruises. I’m hoping it doesn’t get much worse but they are getting older.

I don’t know how all of you moms can deal with things like that. I wouldn’t know what to do.

But, kids will be kids. It happens and the best thing is to move on.

Brittsays:

May 4, 2012 at 12:37 pm

I read throug all the comments and actually started crying !!! My boy is 6 months and we’ve had no accidents KNOCK ON WOOD but i am pretty sure with a baby boy who has a dad like my husband I’m going to see A LOT of blood in my future. I’m so scared !

Chloeysays:

August 13, 2012 at 10:49 pm

A glass (tiny) bottle rolled onto the stove and exploded across the room and cut my oldest son’s eye , I was in my room and heard what sounded like a lightbulb popping, and I called “what happened??” he wouldn’t answer.. except in an anxious startled way.. “I was just trying to make some food.” (He was 12 and making a scrambled egg, I always insisted overprotectively that he wear goggles when cooking, but he hadn’t yet put them on..) that first odd sound that came out of my son’s mouth, the “mom, do something!!” and I turn the corner and see blood everywhere all over my son’s face and sprayed all over the kitchen. I threw on the first pair of pants and shirt i could find, grabbed my phone and keys and him and took him to the ER.. the nurse there dared to tell me I had to wiat like everyone else, and I shouted theres glass in his eye!!!

the dr wanted to take his eye out he said there was no fixing it.. the iris had started leaking out and blood was running down his face. Thankfully one eye was unscathed. A minor cut on his cheek, couple minor ones on his shoulder, but pretty serious ones on his eyelid. the glass had hit his closed eye with such force it ruptured the lens and he couldn’t see, it was a cateract. I begged the doctor to fix it please please please don’t give up do NOT cut his eye out.. he said ok i’ll try but chances are low..

four hours later he said he stitched the eye up and the eyelid and saved the eye but there was no sight in it, it was like trying to stitch a soccer ball, he said, it would make the shape not so round anymore. not knowing for three weeks whether another operation would save his sight, we waited. my son was a trooper. he was his same old self. we stayed with my parents because i had fallen completely apart and all i could do was manage the errands. each family member took a job. my mom did the cooking cleaning and caring. my dad administered the eye drops and meds. I slept next to my son every night.

three weeks later they did surgery – replaced the cateracted lens, with a “bionic eye” – a lens implant. He woke up from surgery and went home. A few hours later he took off the patch and dared to open his eye.

He said.. Mom, I see the patterns on the blanket..
I was so relieved and so happy I yelled for my parents..
He can see 20/30 and has some astigmatism now, and has to wear glasses (the other eye naturally has some need for glasses too, runs in the family) but he doesn’t notice the difference much between the two eyes. one eye is stronger, but he , for what he went thru, came out pretty damn good!

Oh he also broke his wrist at six years old, had a fever of 104 and a seizure at age 2.. and what we thought was appendicitis.. turned out to be just a bad stomach flu. lots of scares.

Now, for my other son, he is only 2 months old today.. and he had to have surgery on his stomach for Pyloric Stenosis. We spent six weeks total of the first of his life in hospitals, they did spinal taps, mris, cat scans, eveyr test , poke and prod imaginable before my eyes. They checked for brain bleeds. He had some tremors they told me he had epilepsy, he didn’t, it was just one of those baby things where he would twitch a little during his sleep. They missed the pyloric stenosis 3 times. its where the stomach can’t empty into the intestine cos the opening is too narrow so he threw up a lot and was losing weight. So I switched to breast feeding ( I wasn’t going to because I am on some meds for anxiety and depression but they cleared it at UCSF, said its ok) and the low flow meant he was able to keep it down and take it in, but it took a while to build up supply. He maintained and plateaued at a weight of 8lbs 3oz for a couple weeks.

Then one day he had gained up to 8lb 7, but was throwing up my breastmilk for the first time. We were readmitted. Then they caught the pyloric stenosis. We had to go thru them sticking IVs in him and missing over and over, watching him suffer and cry.. him being on morphine for a couple days after the surgery..

But today he is 10lbs 7oz, gaining over an ounce a day on exclusive breast feeding, he is catching up, and doing great! My other son is now 16 and going thru a typical teenage stage. he is accident prone still, he falls a lot, once falling NEAR the top of the stairs and breaking his glasses and bruising his eyebrow.. jeez!!

these kids will be the death of me..

Angelasays:

August 11, 2013 at 3:44 pm

I was working full time as a nurse when I received the call from my mother that I needes to come home right away because her dog bit my then 2 year old in the face. I turned a 20 minite drive into 8 minutes and still get emotional thinking about what I saw. my poor, innocent little angel forever scarred by a dog she loved so much. I dont think I will ever truly forgive myself or my mother for this incident. I was firm that only a pediatric plastic surgeon would stitch her eyebrow and corner of her nose. sometimes I think, maybe i should have tken the stitches out sooner or used more mederma. I am still in a constant state of guilt about it. it just hurts my heart so bad I wasnt there for her that very moment and for the rest of her life she will have a reminder of that f*cking a$$hole dog. Thankfully though a year later she has an eyebrow scar similar to your sons and a small white line on the corner of her nose. People say to me “oh, it could have been so much worse..” true, but in reality I wish it never ever happened.

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